We Leave Together, стр. 52
The end of winter, the sheep faced their fate in the mouth of the shears. The wool, too rich in oily lanolin to roll into decent yarn, has to dance with the fullers.
The liver and ammonia stink of weeks-old urine hung in the air. The caravan driver burned pine cones in a bucket, and he held it up in the air. They cracked and snapped in the heat, but they burned the edge of the smell out of the air.
Djoss asked him why he moved this way.
The caravan driver said that raiders kept away from the fullers, on account of the stink. Further north, past the city, nothing mattered.
North and north for weeks, and then they turned east.
And that is where my husband and I encountered the caravan, at the edge of the fullers, with the stink of the demon in his cart, where Rachel rode. He told us of his escape from a raider camp, and how lucky he was for the porter’s Senta sister.
***
Another koan felt in the slanting light of an empty room. Rachel’s voice echoed in Jona’s mind.
A Senta student asked the master if the prayers of the faithful reached the ears of the Gods. The master snorted at his student. Of course not. The prayers need only reach the ears of the one praying.
Jona stared at Rachel’s naked neck. He hoped his prayers reached his father’s soul, in the bowels of Elishta. Then, he pushed the hope aside.
Rachel wondered aloud if her prayers aimed to the nameless, unseen deities that had fallen from the clouds ignored, and fallen into the unholy pits of the planet. Her hand reached up to the ceiling and down in an arc like a meteor.
If so, she whispered, I pray that all of the Nameless demons kill themselves and leave your children alone. We want no part of your selfish ways.
CHAPTER 16
Jona, long before he was the last of the Joni and had a name all his own, knew nothing of the war. He knew a war was happening, and that was all he knew of it. He did not know what it was. The only servants in the house were women, or old, crippled men. All the strong men were off fighting.
His father said that Jona might have to fight in the war, someday, if it kept on like this. A city to the north sent wave after wave of troops south into Dogsland’s countryside. Dogsland sent wave after wave back north.
Lord Joni kept a large garden for the women that worked on the estate. He let them grow anything they wanted, and keep anything they grew.
Jona liked to sneak out of his room at night—he never slept—and raid the garden. A big, yellow dog chained up and mean got rid of rabbits in the night. Baiting the dog was better than the garden. Jona slipped out of his room, climbed down a trellis, and ran over the lawn to the dog near the fence.
Jona untied the dog’s leash and let the animal run free through the grounds. Jona ran with the dog for a while, but the dog wasn’t chasing anything. The dog stopped to sniff hard at the ground, and leave a trail of dog’s water behind him.
Even against the walls that kept the city out, Jona’s grandmother had planted vines with big, fat leaves that made it look like the woods never ended at all. Jona and the dog ran along the fence together.
Owls kept counsel among the leaves of a fat ash tree, gossiping like women. The dog came here to sniff through the owl pellets. Jona heard the dog crunching on hairy rodent bones.
Jona wanted to climb the tree to touch an owl. He grabbed a low branch. He pulled himself up and wedged his boot against another tree next to him. He had to use his hands to feel for new black branches against a black sky full of clouds.
He got up high enough to scare the owls to the higher branches. He stopped because his hands rubbed raw on the bark. He straddled a branch, resting his left foot against another branch for leverage.
A wind swam through the branches. A sea storm was coming. Jona stayed where he was, waiting for the rain to come. He looked up at the dark sky, watching the city lights bounce off the boiling night clouds.
He listened for the sounds of the dog down below. He looked down at the black ground. He couldn’t even see shadows.
Thunder rolled in.
Then, lightning.
In the flash, a naked man covered in blood.
Jona froze.
Thunder.
Lightning again, and this time, Jona saw his father’s face, all twisted up like a ghoul, and the man’s face covered with dog blood, and the dog hanging limp from the nude man’s mouth.
Jona clawed higher up the tree. His hands didn’t bleed, but they felt like they might bleed.
Thunder again.
The rain fell hard. Jona clung to his tree all night, terrified. He only came down for breakfast when he heard his mother calling him.
Was this a dream, a piece of a dream, or a memory?
I don’t know. The man was arrested, and hung high like a criminal.
His wealth was lost at sea. Lands were lost. A mother remained, with a boy, and she had to send her son to temple school like a beggar.
***
There’s another dream I have at night.
Jona and the kitchen girls climbed up the ladders cutting oranges off the branches. They’re all giggling and giggling. One of the girls—the one with freckles and a club foot—cuts into the orange in her hand with the knife. She bites into the flesh. The chef down below screams at the girl. The girl waves her hand at the woman. She hands the orange—her face all sticky—to the girl on the ladder near her. That girl takes a bite. She hands the orange to Jona.
The chef is screaming now, all red in the face. She calls the children filthy thieves.